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Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

While only tangentially related, this thread got me thinking again about how monetization enters into game design: at what point in the design process does it enter, who’s in charge of it, and how it affects the quality of games we ultimately receive. Usually for the worse https://t.co/UgezN7sS0W

While only tangentially related, this thread got me thinking again about how monetization enters into game design: at what point in the design process does it enter, who’s in charge of it, and how it affects the quality of games we ultimately receive. Usually for the worse https://t.co/UgezN7sS0W

  • J_Alexander_HS
    Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
    While only tangentially related, this thread got me thinking again about how monetization enters into game design: at what point in the design process does it enter, who’s in charge of it, and how it affects the quality of games we ultimately receive. Usually for the worse https://t.co/UgezN7sS0W

    • J_Alexander_HS
      Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
      Battlegrounds is a monumental success in terms of being a fun and interesting game mode for many. This is, I suspect, largely a function of how accessible it is. Click the play button and you’re in. Nothing else really required to unlock or keep up with. No entry fee

      • J_Alexander_HS
        Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
        I also suspect that BGs were designed with game play first and monetization an afterthought. If memory serves, it started as a tavern brawl without anyone thinking about how to use it to make money. The result was a smashing success

        • J_Alexander_HS
          Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
          By contrast, I can’t really think of any other HS game mode that has been in any way improved via monetization features. Constructed is better than it was by a lot, but still feels quite expensive for a video game. Mercs monetization is a mess and feels awful

          • J_Alexander_HS
            Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
            In most cases, there are simply walls erected to make a game feel less fun: time-gating content, incomplete collections, ideas that can’t be explored, fun that can’t be had, regret felt over getting the “wrong” content. They actively make worse games on purpose

            • PascoaHS
              Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
              @J_Alexander_HS lowkey, i think i enjoyed hearthstone more as a game when i was f2p and had a limited collection (back in 2014) and needed to build my own decks based off of cards that I had opened in packs and play against other f2p players any game designer thoughts? @Celestalon @IksarHS

              • MeatiHS
                Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS @Celestalon @IksarHS The journey is always better than the destination

                • Iksar
                  Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                  @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS @Celestalon Difficult to decipher what this means. Monetization can make games less fun in a bunch of ways, some of those ways are by design, some aren't.

                  • Iksar
                    Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                    @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS @Celestalon If you bought the Halo Infinite campaign and could additionally purchase the ability for the campaign to be marked as complete with full achievements, that monetization makes the game less fun. It's not a very good product and is probably poor design.

                    • Iksar
                      Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                      @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS @Celestalon If the Halo Infinite campaign is less fun because it costs 40 bucks instead of just being free, that isn't really a design problem. It's a creative studio charging money for their product.

                      • Chadd Nervigg
                        Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                        @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS I think it's also hard to see the true ways that games/modes/systems have been "improved by monetization features" in a lot of cases. Often the way is simply "they exist". Whole features (that are free) may exist primarily because some other (paid) feature pays for it.

                        • Chadd Nervigg
                          Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                          @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS Or free things may benefit from effort put in to paid things. On the surface you could think "They made all these skins, and then locked most of them behind a paywall". In truth, none of those skins would exist without some of them being paid for.

                          • Chadd Nervigg
                            Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                            @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS Look at the huge increase in available cosmetics that Hearthstone has had in the last year. That didn't come instantly, or free; that was a huge effort by many people to build a pipeline to handle that massive added workload. That wouldn't have been viable if it wasn't monetized.

                            • rattleclaws
                              Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                              @Celestalon @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS Would you guys ever consider tipping the balance away from monetizing game pieces towards cosmetics? As a moderately paying player, I'm often in a situation where I can't pay for cosmetics because I still need to buy cards, but I'd still pay the same amount of money either way.

                              • rattleclaws
                                Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                                @Celestalon @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS And chances are I'd play the game more and buy more cosmetics if I could actually play with the pieces I want, instead of getting bored faster because I'm lacking cards basically 100% of the time.

                                • Chadd Nervigg
                                  Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                                  @rattleclaws @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS @IksarHS has commented on this exact topic recently. https://t.co/1uGlYUqOsO

                                  • rattleclaws
                                    Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                                    @Celestalon @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS Thank you very much for that. I'm honestly quite surprised that cosmetics have low % adoption, though I do wonder if that has anything to do with people prioritizing their spending on game pieces when given the option.

                                    • Chadd Nervigg
                                      Posted 4 years, 2 months ago (Source)
                                      @rattleclaws @IksarHS @MeatiHS @PascoaHS @J_Alexander_HS Honestly, not really. While you suggest that you would still spend the same, just more of it would be on cosmetics, that rarely plays out in practice (and most people wouldn't even say that).
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